The Volunteering Dogma and Canadian Work Experience: Do

Recent Immigrants Volunteer Voluntarily?

Stacey Wilson-Forsberg, Bharati Sethi

Canadian Ethnic Studies, Volume 47, Number 3, 2015, pp. 91-110 (Article)

Published by Canadian Ethnic Studies Association

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ces.2015.0034

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/594779

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 STACEY WILSON-FORSBERG AND BHARATI SETHI

The Volunteering Dogma and Canadian Work

Experience: Do Recent Immigrants Volunteer
Voluntarily?1

Abstract
This article deconstructs the now common practice of immigrant volunteering for the purpose of
upgrading or practicing job-related skills in Canada. The analysis draws on the findings of two sep-
arate qualitative studies related to the integration of immigrant adults in Southern Ontario. The first
study (Wilson-Forsberg) focused on the settlement and adaptation experiences of immigrants (both
men and women) from Latin America and the second study (Sethi) examined the impact of employ-
ment on the health and well-being of immigrant and refugee women from the visible minority pop-
[45.160.36.189] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 20:13 GMT) UNIVALI-Universidade Do Vale Do ItajaÃÂ

ulation. Having re-analyzed our interview data to highlight the motivations behind participants’
volunteering and their perceptions of the experience, the findings suggest that immigrants volun-
teer to gain Canadian experience, to maintain remnants of professional identity, and to overcome
loneliness and boredom. Intersectionality analysis of participants’ multiple intersecting identities
reveals that immigrant volunteering is more complex than merely volunteering for upgrading human
and/or social capital skills. The article concludes that, while volunteering can be beneficial to foster
the social integration of immigrants, it appears to do little to enhance their economic integration.

Résumé
Cet article déconstruit la pratique maintenant courante des immigrants de faire du volontariat à fin
d’améliorer ou de pratiquer leurs compétences liées à l’emploi au Canada. L’analyse repose sur les
résultats de deux études qualitatives indépendantes reliées à l’intégration d’immigrants adultes
dans le sud de l’Ontario. La première étude (auteur 1) a porté sur l’expérience d’établissement et
d’adaptation d’immigrants (hommes et femmes) d’Amérique Latine et la deuxième étude (auteur
2) a examiné l’impact de l’emploi sur la santé et le bien-être de femmes immigrantes et réfugiées
provenant de la population de minorités visibles. Après avoir révisé notre analyse des données
ramassées lors des entrevues pour souligner les motivations qui poussent les participants à faire du
volontariat et leurs perceptions de l’expérience, il apparaît que les immigrants font du volontariat
pour gagner de l’expérience canadienne, pour maintenir un semblant d’identité professionnelle, et
pour surmonter la solitude et l’ennui. L’analyse intersectionnelle des croisements multiples d’iden-
tités des participants révèle que le volontariat immigrant est plus complexe que le simple fait
d’améliorer le capital d’habiletés humaines et/ou sociales. L’article conclut que bien que le volon-
tariat soit bénéfique pour favoriser l’intégration sociale des immigrants, il ne semble pas rehausser
leur intégration économique.

CES Volume 47 Number 3 (2015), 91-110

92 | Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada

INTRODUCTION

Research has shown that when immigrants to Canada are unable to find appropri-
ate paid work, they often volunteer their skills, time, and energy in the hope of gain-
ing the Canadian experience that will eventually lead to paid employment (Aycan
and Berry 1996; Bauder 2003; Sakamoto, Chin, and Young 2010). The underlying
claim is that volunteering will help immigrants’ careers by assisting them to “regain
social and human capital lost in the migration process” (Handy and Greenspan
2009, 95). The Government of Canada explicitly encourages new immigrants to vol-
unteer, suggesting that this unpaid service can help them gain Canadian work expe-
rience, practice English or French, build a social network, establish a suitable
reference for employment, and demonstrate to prospective employers that they are
“willing to work hard” (Citizenship and Immigration Canada [CIC] 2012a, 47; see
also Hackl, Halla, and Pruckner 2007; Prouteau and Wolff 2006). And yet, volunteer-
ing in this context may also provide employers with skilled and educated individu-
als who ideally should receive a salary for their labour, but instead end up providing
the labour for free (Bauder 2003; Guo 2009).
In this article we combine the findings of two separate qualitative studies related
to the integration of immigrant adults in Southern Ontario to deconstruct the now
common practice of immigrant volunteering for the purpose of upgrading or practic-
ing job-related skills in Canada. The first study (study 1 Wilson-Forsberg) focused on
the settlement and adaptation experiences of Latin American men and women
(N=16) who immigrated to the Southern Ontario cities of Brantford and Cambridge
over the past two to ten years. The second study (study 2 Sethi) examined the impact
of employment on the health and well-being of visible minority immigrant and
refugee women (N=20) in Grand Erie, an urban/rural region of Southern Ontario.
After completing our individual research projects, we re-analyzed our interview data
from the 36 immigrant/refugee men and women to highlight motivations behind their
volunteering and their perceptions of the volunteering experience. Consistent with
past studies by Slade (2008), Schugurensky, Slade, and Luo (2005), and Tomlinson
(2008), our findings suggest that, while volunteering was beneficial to the social inte-
gration of the immigrant participants, it did little to enhance their economic integra-
tion. Most of the participants in our two studies agreed that volunteering helped them
practice English and develop social networks; however, it did little to open up job
opportunities in their fields of expertise. For the research participants the strategy of
volunteering for economic integration was neither effective nor particularly voluntary.
The organized and widespread promotion of volunteerism as a vehicle to access pri-
mary labour opportunities that are otherwise restricted to new immigrants to Canada
has therefore become what we refer to as an “unchallenged dogma.”
Stacey Wilson-Forsberg and Bharati Sethi | 93

UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF IMMIGRANT VOLUNTEERING

Our deconstruction of immigrant volunteering is based on the premise that

Canada’s current institutional policies and practices with respect to immigration,
multiculturalism, and the labour market undermine a more equitable economic and
social integration of immigrants by carrying with them the implicit assumption that
conformity represents successful integration (Balgopal 2000; Guo 2009, 2013; Li
2003; Sakamoto 2007; Sakamoto et al. 2013). This assumption arguably normalizes
human capital acquired in Canada as superior to the knowledge and experience of
immigrant professionals, especially those who emigrate from the developing regions
of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Guo 2013). The undermining of human capital
obtained in a foreign country is also visible in social policies that provide services for
immigrants, including those delivering employment counselling. We argue that it is
not immigrants’ lack of skill, but rather, a deficit model of difference ideology (Guo
2009, 2013) operating to control immigrants’ access to job opportunities. Immigrants
to Canada are regarded as deficient in certain Canadian skills and attributes; they lack
Canadian experience and do not measure up to Canadian standards of communi-
cating in English. Immigrants are then coached and mentored to become more like
native-born Canadians through programs that support the status quo and exclude
difference (Baltodano et al 2007; Bauder 2003; Bejan 2011/12; Guo 2009, 2013;
Sakamoto et al. 2013). Our article contributes to this thinking by arguing that pro-
grams and individuals who encourage immigrants to volunteer to further their eco-
nomic integration, however well intentioned, are informed by the same deficit
model of difference. Furthermore, since most (N=31) of our participants were
skilled and professional women recruited to Canada through the human capital
model, the findings build on emerging scholarship on professional immigrant
women in Canada. Considering the recent geographical dispersion of immigrants to
small and medium-sized urban centres and rural areas such as Grand Erie (see Sethi
2009), our article also adds to a small body of work on immigrant integration in
smaller Canadian communities outside of the large metropolitan centres.

VOLUNTEERING FOR CANADIAN WORK EXPERIENCE

In economics, the centrality of the human capital model presupposes that immi-
grants with superior human capital (e.g., university education) will achieve economic
success faster than those with lower human capital (e.g., a high school diploma). The
points-based immigration selection criteria that ranks potential immigrants based on
their education, work experience, English or French language ability, arranged
employment and adaptability follow the human capital model. Skilled workers are
 94 | Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada

preferred to those sponsored by family members, older immigrants and refugees

because they are thought to bring more human capital to the Canadian labour mar-
ket (Buzdugan and Halli 2009). Consequently, since 1990, the number of family-
class immigrants has been quietly reduced by the federal government to make room
for more economic-class immigrants (Wilkinson 2013). In 2011, for example,
Canada admitted 156,077 economic-class immigrants and 56,419 family-class
immigrants (CIC 2012b). Li (2003), among other authors, documents that the
human capital of recent immigrant cohorts, operationalized by the percentage of
university degree holders, is higher and increases with time compared to the human
capital of earlier immigrant cohorts. Nevertheless, despite high levels of advanced
training and skills, immigrant professionals lose access to the occupations they pre-
viously held. They find themselves disproportionately in low-wage jobs, with new
immigrants facing chronically high levels of underemployment, unemployment,
and poverty (Aydemir and Skuterud 2005; Baltodano et al. 2007; Li 2001; Picot 2004;
Reitz, Curtis, and Elrick 2014; Skuterud 2010). The evidence therefore suggests that
it is not the quality of immigrants’ human capital, but rather, structural or systemic
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barriers in the labour market and broader society that restrict skilled immigrants’
access to many occupations.
The underutilization of immigrant skills due to the lower value placed on their
human capital is an important component of their overall employment disadvan-
tage in Canada (Reitz et al. 2014; see also Austin and Este 2001; Bauder 2003; Guo
2009, 2013; Li 2001; Reitz 2001; Sakamoto et al. 2013). Discounting of foreign edu-
cational credentials and work experience particularly affects new arrivals in the
skilled-worker category. It prevents them from reaping the full benefit of their skills
and of the nominal amount of their education (Bauder 2003, 708) and, at best, it
confines them to support roles within their professions (Grant and Nadin 2007).
Khan (2007) draws on Murphy’s (1994) use of social closure to argue that educa-
tional and professional credentials are an instrument used by the dominant class to
restrict access, privileges, and opportunities for the subordinate classes. Other
authors (Guo 2009; Sethi 2014) attribute the deskilling of immigrants to Foucault’s
nature of knowledge as social relations whereby knowledge is used as power to keep
out the undesirable. These theoretical explanations of immigrant deskilling are
framed by a segmented or split labour market (Piore 1979), which claims that there
are two labour markets, a primary labour market where the Canadian-born work for
high wages, and a secondary labour market where foreign-trained migrants work for
lower wages (Krahn and Lowe 2002).
Employers’ preference for Canadian human capital ultimately compels immi-
grants to volunteer to gain Canadian experience (Guo 2009). The Government of
Canada Planning to Work in Canada guide defines volunteering as a service that is
Stacey Wilson-Forsberg and Bharati Sethi | 95

performed “willingly and without pay” (CIC 2012a, 47-48). Studies citing volunteer-
ing in relation to immigrants’ integration into the Canadian labour market have
been increasing in the academic literature and some have become increasingly crit-
ical of the practice (see for example: Guo 2009; Kazemipur 2011; Schugurensky and
Slade 2008; Schugurensky et al. 2005). For employers, volunteering may be regarded
as a productive activity similar to work experience and as an indicator of human
capital. Consequently, volunteer placements are now a routine feature of employ-
ment readiness, re-professionalization, and bridging programs in Canada. A wide
range of stakeholders including community organizations, federal and provincial
government departments, ethnic media, and the immigrants themselves endorse
volunteerism as an effective strategy for immigrants to increase the market value of
their human capital and gain valuable Canadian experience (Slade 2008).

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In this study we deconstruct the now common practice of immigrant volunteering

for the purpose of upgrading or practicing job-related skills in Canada. Based on the
central tenets of intersectionality theory (see Bilge 2009; Bowleg 2008; Davis 2008;
Hankivsky and Cormier 2009), we posit that while examining immigrant/refugee
experiences, it is important to pay attention to how social categories such as race,
class, gender, age, geography, immigrant status, ethnicity, and so on intersect to
shape participants’ experiences. We point out that using an intersectionality lens
adds richness to our combined analysis by enabling an examination that expands
beyond the focus on a single category to multiple categories that individuals simul-
taneously occupy (such as race, class, gender, ethnicity, etc.), thus, creating space for
participants’ intersectional voices to be heard.

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

Reflective lifeworld research, community-based participatory research (CBPR), pho-

tovoice, and grounded theory formed the methodological frameworks for our
understanding of the integration of immigrants in Southern Ontario. Study 1 bor-
rowed from Dahlberg et al.’s (2001) reflective lifeworld approach, which aims to
describe and clarify lived experiences in such a way that the participants’ knowledge
and understanding of their lived experiences are enhanced. In-depth semi-struc-
tured interviews lasting 60 to 90 minutes were conducted with the explicit aim of
encouraging respondents to reflect on many of the settlement and adaptation expe-
riences they may have taken for granted. A CBPR project conducted in collaboration
with diverse community stakeholders, study 2 used photovoice to examine the
96 | Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada

health effects of employment on visible minority immigrant/refugee women. In

keeping with the tenets of photovoice (see Wang 1999), participants were given cam-
eras to record their employment and health experiences. The women were then inter-
viewed face-to-face to articulate their understandings of the meaning of the
photographs in relation to their employment and health experiences. Since Southern
Ontario consists of urban and rural areas, as well as various ethnicities, purposive
sampling allowed the authors to diversify their population samples in regards to eth-
nicities, religion, and geography. Their recruitment strategies included advertising in
locales frequented by potential participants (e.g., ethnic stores, religious centres, adult
English-as-second-language [ESL] classrooms, etc.), and consulting with community
organizations (e.g., local immigrant partnerships and immigrant settlement serv-
ices). All interviews in study 1 and 2 were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Both
studies employed grounded theory to analyze data (Charmaz 2006), developing open
codes, focused codes, categories, and final themes from participants’ interviews.

BRIEF DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Study 1
Of the 24 Latin Americans who participated in study 1, 16 immigrant professionals
were included in the analysis undertaken for this article; six relatively low-skilled
participants and two skilled participants who had their foreign qualifications recog-
nized were not included because they were not deskilled by the Canadian labour
market. Each immigrant professional was employed in his/her country of origin.
Wilson-Forsberg analyzed interview data from five men and 11 women, all with a
median age between 32-40 years. At the time of the study the five men were working
in jobs that did not suit their education and skills and two of the men were volun-
teering. Of the 11 women, six were employed in jobs unrelated to their fields of
training and five stayed at home with children. All of the women were volunteering
at the time of the study and one ceased to volunteer upon gaining employment.

Study 2
For the variable age, the median was between 35-44 years. All the women who par-
ticipated in study 2 (Sethi) were employed at the time of the study and the average
time in their current occupation was 5.65 years. It is noteworthy that most of the
study participants (80 per cent) were also employed in the paid labour force in their
country of origin. In regards to volunteering, only 15 per cent volunteered in their
country of origin. After arriving in Canada 60 per cent engaged in volunteering.
However, after gaining employment only 35 per cent continued to volunteer and all
of them on a part-time basis.
 Stacey Wilson-Forsberg and Bharati Sethi | 97

FINDINGS

In the following section we summarize the three key themes that emerged from our
joint analysis: (1) Canadian Experience and the Volunteering Dogma; (2) Maintaining
Remnants of Professional Identity; and (3) Volunteering to Overcome Loneliness and
Boredom. We have used participant selected pseudo-names throughout the article.

Theme one: Canadian Experience and the Volunteering Dogma

Requiring Canadian experience, but not extending the opportunity to gain that
experience as a result of having no Canadian experience, is perhaps the most pun-
ishing of paradoxes encountered by skilled immigrants in Ontario and other
Canadian provinces. Even though most of the participants in our two studies were
university educated, they did not meet the requirements for Canadian experience
and this circumstance posed a serious barrier to their access to the labour market.
Susan from China poignantly articulated her experience: “Even to apply for secretar-
ial job, they require Canadian experience…Canadian experience is like the egg and
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chicken situation – which comes first?” Similar to Susan, Gayatri from India likened
the Canadian experience paradox to cycling: “If I know cycling, but you don’t give
me a bicycle to ride then what is the use of my knowing how to cycle? How can I
learn traffic rules if you don’t let me cycle here? I need practice to ride in Canada.”
It is through volunteering that the immigrant professionals who participated in
our studies were expected to gain the necessary Canadian experience and make a
smooth transition into the Canadian labour market. The participants overwhelm-
ingly reported that, at the time of interview, they volunteered in their respective
receiving community with the objective of acquiring career-related experience in
Canada. As pointed out by Andrés from Colombia: “…here, when you’re an immi-
grant you know that if you want to find a job you have to volunteer to gain the
Canadian experience so that’s like your connection to the community.” Similarly,
Enigma from the Philippines was clear about her motivations for volunteering: “I
am volunteering so I can get the job to my potential so I can fly like the white swan.”
Our data revealed that many of these immigrant professionals from visible
minority populations had a difficult time finding volunteer work in the receiving
community that even remotely matched their specific skills and experience.
Immigration status (immigrants rather than Canadian born) and ethnicity (visible
minorities rather than white immigrants) intersected to deny their access to skilled
jobs. Other researchers document that the requirement for Canadian experience is
often unrelated to the competencies of the positions for which they are applying
(Dlamini, Anucha, and Wolf 2012; Teelucksingh and Galabuzi 2005). Furthermore,
the same deficiencies in language ability, Canadian experience, and social networks
98 | Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada

that impeded their access to the labour market also represented barriers to volunteer-
ing. Some of the volunteer opportunities even required Canadian experience as
reflected in Susan’s quotation: “I contacted some places to volunteer, but I couldn’t
even get volunteering job…I wasn’t successful. I have a payroll and accounting
diploma (from Canada), but no one would give me the experience to even volunteer.”
In spite of these apparent barriers, most of the 36 participants ultimately landed
in what appear to be three distinct categories of volunteering: (1) unpaid internships
and co-op placements; (2) traditional volunteer positions in the receiving commu-
nity such as in hospitals, libraries, and schools; and (3) volunteering to assist other
recent immigrants, either formally through immigrant settlement and multicultural
agencies, or informally through self-initiated activities in the community. Below, we
elaborate on the three categories.

Unpaid Internships and Work Co-ops

Six participants sampled in our two studies partook in what appeared to be unpaid
internships. “Appeared” refers to the fact that these placements are not always called
internships and work cop-ops, but rather are referred to as “volunteering.” A good
example is Andrés, a veterinarian from Colombia. Having received permanent resi-
dency through the Federal Skilled Worker program, Andrés was confident that he could
continue to work as a veterinarian in Canada. But, he found the foreign qualification
recognition process too complicated and costly. Thus, he undertook an internship
inseminating cattle at an experimental farm in the hope that the unpaid hours would
count toward obtaining a Canadian veterinarian license. The hours probably did count
but the high cost of writing his Ontario licensing exam ($14,000) and the combined
hours of interning, studying for the exam, and working ultimately forced Andrés to put
his veterinarian career on hold and seek full-time employment as a welder. Andrés’
story is illustrative of the cost and complexity involved in the assessment of foreign
qualifications in Canada and the role that unpaid labour plays in that process.
Although referred to as “volunteering” by participants, in the literature on vol-
unteering, an unpaid internship is not considered volunteer work as it is assumed to
be part of an individual’s educational experience (Slade 2008). Internships and work
co-ops undoubtedly assist immigrants in certain professions (such as trades) to
enter the Canadian labour market; however, our findings uncovered a fine line
between the unpaid hours of an educational placement and an immigrant profes-
sional being asked by an employer to work unpaid hours to improve his or her skills.
Based on the definition of volunteering cited earlier from the Government of
Canada website, being compelled to work for free is not volunteering. An unequal
power relationship in the Canadian labour market compelled Andrés to work at the
experimental farm for free in the hope that he would get the Canadian veterinarian
Stacey Wilson-Forsberg and Bharati Sethi | 99

license that he desperately needed. And for this reason we consider these educational
experiences to be a worrisome trend when undertaken by immigrant professionals.
Internships and co-op placements are designed to provide people with work
experience related to their major fields of study. Unpaid work placements can be an
effective strategy for immigrant professionals to acquire suitable employment, but it
is difficult to support oneself and a family while participating in an unpaid place-
ment especially in the initial years of settlement. After an unsuccessful job hunt,
Andrés and some of the other participants resorted to working in one or more sur-
vival jobs in addition to volunteering in an area more closely related to their expert-
ise; a double and often triple shift that left little time for their families, themselves,
or for deeper engagement with the receiving society. There are paid internship ini-
tiatives for immigrant professionals underway in Ontario (for example, the Career
Bridge Program and the Ontario Public Service Internship Program for
Internationally Trained Individuals), but the restricted eligibility criteria and num-
ber of available positions limit participation (Mennonite New Life Centre 2010).
Furthermore, Perlin (2011) concluded that a growing number of businesses and
organizations are using unpaid interns to do work that, in many instances, would
otherwise be performed by paid employees. The constant reinforcement of the vol-
unteering mantra (a magical word that if repeated can bring spiritual and material
rewards), moreover, creates an environment “where employers have come to expect
that immigrants should work for free as part of their orientation to the labour mar-
ket” (Slade 2008, 78).

Traditional Volunteering in the Host Community

Volunteering is an important component of civic engagement, but there appears to
be a wide disconnect between traditional volunteer opportunities in a receiving
community and the objective of acquiring Canadian work experience. Depending
on their motivations for volunteering, immigrants may become involved in different
types of volunteer activities and organizations. For instance, an internationally-
trained lawyer who wants to gain skills and knowledge might prefer to volunteer in
a crown prosecutor’s office rather than feeding the homeless in a soup kitchen (Lee
and Moon 2011). Although the motivation for many of the immigrant professionals
who participated in our studies was to gain the Canadian experience that was needed
for their transition into the paid labour force, they reported that the volunteer
opportunities available to them had little to do with their skills and training, and
therefore did not qualify as Canadian experience in their professions (see Dlamini et
al. 2012; and Teelucksingh and Galabuzi 2005 for similar findings). By way of illus-
tration, Janavi, a human resource specialist from Singapore, accepted a volunteer
position at the local hospital. She explained her volunteering experience as follows:
 100 | Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada

I was treated as um what they call it…a worker. No – not a worker. A labourer pushing
people on wheel chair. So I went to HR and said that I have my human resources
diploma from Singapore and I am working on my first level of licensing in Canada and
I would like some experience in that position. But my credentials were never acknowl-
edged. I was never given that opportunity. I was asked to just push wheelchairs around
and it was made clear to me that that was the kind of work I would get.

Janavi was likely not being intentionally mistreated or discriminated against when
asked to transport patients around the hospital wards. This example corroborates
Slade’s (2008) finding that that traditional volunteer positions are not set up to give
people work experience. She noted: “[i]t is questionable that the experience gained
through a short-term volunteer placement could give an immigrant enough respon-
sibility and scope to really improve his or her abilities or that this type of experience
would be considered by employers as relevant” (74). Another participant, Ding, from
the Philippines, decided to volunteer to improve her likelihood of getting a job in the
engineering field. She took great pride working as a volunteer with a local church
and was surprised when the employment counsellor who helped her with her
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resume told her that she could not include that volunteering experience because it
was in a church. While she did not regret volunteering, to know that all those
months of volunteering in a place that provided her with so much social and spiri-
tual support did not count as volunteering experience was devastating to her.

Volunteering in the Settlement and Multicultural Sector

Other participants sought to earn Canadian experience by volunteering to assist more
recent arrivals to Canada to adapt to the receiving community. Working with immi-
grants who have shared similar lived experiences provided the participants, and espe-
cially the female participants, with the opportunity to undertake volunteer work
within their comfort zone. This finding corresponds with other studies demonstrat-
ing that, when immigrants volunteer, they most often engage in the immigrant settle-
ment and multicultural sector (Creese and Wiebe 2012; Tastsoglou and Miedema
2005). Some volunteered through formal organizations; others volunteered more
informally on their own initiative. These activities also qualify as traditional volun-
teering in the receiving community; however, our findings suggest that their effect on
the participants’ human capital acquisition tended to be inconsequential, since (1) the
unpaid hours spent with the recent immigrants were seldom considered as real work
by those employers outside of the settlement/multicultural sector and (2) the work
was often outside of their professional skillsets. Sofía, for example, worked as a char-
tered accountant in Mexico, but lacked her CA designation in Ontario. She applied
for basic bookkeeping jobs with no success and at the time of interview she super-
vised workers at a frozen waffle factory. For the past five years she voluntarily pre-
Stacey Wilson-Forsberg and Bharati Sethi | 101

pared income taxes for some of the over 10,000 Mexican temporary farm workers in
the Grand Erie region. While Sofía acquired new expertise in Canadian tax law, she
nevertheless contended that employers did not consider her many unpaid hours fil-
ing taxes as Canadian experience because she did the job voluntarily and because the
Mexicans are temporary workers.
Türegün (2011) wrote: “It is no coincidence that, regardless of their previous
lines of work, immigrants come to the [settlement] sector in droves in the absence
of other opportunities for meaningful employment…. As an emerging and under-
privileged sector, immigrant settlement services are still defining their professional,
organizational, and remuneration standards” (1). For most of the participants in
Wilson-Forsberg and Sethi’s studies, volunteering did not lead to paid employment.
However, those participants who volunteered in the immigrant settlement sector
such as Paula, Lydia, and Janavi (her second volunteering position), were offered
part-time paid positions at these agencies following a period of volunteering. These
positions did not require high levels of training and they were not stable or well-
paid. The majority of immigrants working in the settlement and multicultural sec-
tor are concentrated in front-line counselling and community outreach jobs. In
contrast, ESL instruction and employment training jobs, which are more stable and
better paid, tend to be held by the Canadian-born staff (Lee 1999).

Theme two: Maintaining Remnants of Professional Identity

Once working, whether in their field of expertise, in a new occupation, or in a sur-
vival job, about 65 per cent of the participants stopped volunteering in the receiving
community. Some participants, like Xenia from El Salvador, volunteered with
refugees until she became employed in a suitable job and found that she no longer
had time. Other participants, especially those professionals from Chile and
Argentina, took a more contemptuous view of volunteering in the receiving commu-
nity. They referred to the activity as a debt that they as immigrants must pay to
Canadian society before being allowed to return to the labour market. These partic-
ipants equated volunteering with the mandatory servicio social that many Latin
American students must partake in to graduate from high school or university.
“Volunteering? No Más! Not anymore! I think I paid my volunteering debt to
Canadian society,” said Paula, laughing.
Nevertheless, while participants initially volunteered to acquire Canadian expe-
rience, a few of them continued to volunteer in the receiving community after find-
ing a paid job because volunteering turned out to be the only connection they had to
their past professional identities. In this article we borrow from Mead’s 1934 concep-
tion of identity as emerging out of the mind and the mind as arising and developing
out of social interaction. Professional identity, for its part, is a set of internally and
102 | Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada

externally ascribed attributes that are used to differentiate one group from another
(Sachs 2001). Being employed in one’s field of training heightens professional iden-
tity, which in turn increases self-confidence and self-esteem, elevates social status
and results in more social support and recognition from others (Ross and Mirowsky
1995; see Wilson-Forsberg 2015). “The most urgent and profoundly felt need of
many immigrant professionals” is therefore, to “re-establish a meaningful sense of
identity of which the professional component is a major element” (Shuval 2000,
192). Facing occupational downgrading, some of the participants in our studies took
a full-time survival job or a job in another field and continued to volunteer on the
side for the nostalgic satisfaction of using their skills and maintaining some vestige
of their professional identities. A corporate lawyer turned human rights activist,
Jaime from Colombia, is one such example. Having received asylum in Canada, at
the time of interview Jaime was cleaning office buildings and working as a hotel
porter. Longing to get his legal career back, he began volunteering his legal expertise
to refugee claimants with human rights grievances in Southern Ontario. Another
participant, Daniel from Guatemala, cited similar motives for volunteering. A
teacher by training, at the time of interview Daniel poured concrete for 60 hours
each week in an environment that, in his words, was “not exactly conducive to intel-
lectually stimulating conversations.” Daniel’s teaching qualifications were not recog-
nized in Ontario and he did not have the time, financial resources, or English fluency
to retake his degree at a university. To maintain his teaching skills and keep some
remnants of his professional identity, Daniel volunteered to teach basic literacy skills
to the Mexican migrant farm workers. He was aware that the volunteer teaching
would not give him the kind of Canadian experience he needed to be a teacher. For
Daniel, volunteering is now about professional identity: “The farms have become my
classroom and I have become their teacher.” Meaningful work contributed to the
participants’ sense of fulfillment through mastery of self and the environment as
well as the sense that they are valued members of society (Blustein 2006). The immi-
grant professionals now rely on volunteering for that small sense of fulfillment.

Theme three: Volunteering to Overcome Loneliness and Boredom

The skilled women who immigrated to Canada as dependents of their husbands
(N=7 study 1, N=10 study 2) not only lost their careers or put them on hold, they
also became housebound. While many of the men and women had similar encoun-
ters with volunteering for Canadian experience, it is important to recognize that cul-
tural expectations made female participants in the studies primarily responsible for
childcare and all household chores. Here, gender clearly intersected with culture and
ethnicity adding another layer of responsibility (volunteering) to their unpaid
household chores and searching for paid work. Gender was clearly indicated in their
 Stacey Wilson-Forsberg and Bharati Sethi | 103

marginalization, and the intersection of gender with geography, class and culture
obstructed their access to positions of power. For example, in smaller urban centres
and rural areas, such as Grand Erie, there is a poor transportation structure and lack
of culturally appropriate and affordable childcare. Sethi (2009) found that immi-
grant women will often put their husbands’ and children’s needs ahead of their own.
Due to financial and cultural issues, they delay getting their educational credentials
and driver’s licenses until after their spouses have their credentials assessed and pass
the driving tests. With small children and no transportation, they are unable to
attend language and other training sessions integral to their economic integration.
For the women who participated in our studies, the loss of a career also signified a
loss of independence, self-esteem, as well as identity. In the words of Marcela from
Chile, “Before the volunteering I was Geoff ’s wife and Alex’s mother, but not
Marcela. Where was Marcela? Well I guess Marcela was left behind in Chile.”
Encouraged by employment counsellors and other immigrants, the women began
volunteering – more often than not helping other recent arrivals in the settlement
and multicultural sector – as a way of overcoming boredom and loneliness.
[45.160.36.189] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 20:13 GMT) UNIVALI-Universidade Do Vale Do ItajaÃÂ

Volunteering did not help these housebound women find work; however, it did
enable them to meet people with whom they could have an adult conversation.
Cooking together for community events and celebrating cultural festivals with
women from similar and different cultures who were in the same situation as them,
also helped form a sense of community.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The stories documented in this article reveal how immigrant professionals in

Southern Ontario interpret their experiences volunteering for Canadian experience.
Affecting immigrants in skilled professions more than unskilled professions, in
recent years, Canadian experience has been treated as a taken-for-granted labour
market requirement for immigrants to Canada. The immigrant professionals who
participated in our two qualitative studies expected to find suitable paid employ-
ment once they had fulfilled the criterion of volunteering. And yet, consistent with
the literature cited earlier in this article, our findings demonstrate mixed results with
respect to volunteering. While our data with respect to volunteering as a vehicle to
promote new immigrants’ social integration are consistent with Handy and
Greenspan’s (2009) study, we did not find, as these authors suggested, that volun-
teering enhanced immigrants’ economic integration. Enticing immigrants to volun-
teer seems to be a smart business strategy for organizations struggling with labour
shortages, but with the exception of the three women who were subsequently hired
by settlement and multicultural agencies (and not in the professions for which they
104 | Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada

were trained), volunteering did not directly facilitate most of the participants’ eco-
nomic integration. Even so, consistent with Handy and Greenspan’s (2009) findings,
participants confirmed that volunteering helped them increase their social networks
and social capital, make friends (primarily with other immigrants) and mediate
stress. Many participants were also satisfied that they were doing something mean-
ingful and of benefit to the community.
This article does not seek to vilify the act of volunteering. On the contrary, vol-
unteering is perhaps the most important step a new immigrant to Canada can take
toward integrating socially and civically into the receiving community. However, the
normalization of Canadian work experience, invalidation of foreign experience, and
widespread promotion of voluntarism as a way to gain Canadian experience “accom-
plishes the task of relegating skilled immigrants to a marginalized position in the
labour market as they confront the difficulty of establishing their worthiness through
Canadian experience” (Sakamoto et al. 2013, 20). Precisely for these reasons we con-
tend that Canadian experience is a marker of difference that contributes to the mar-
ginalization of skilled immigrants and consequently, “helps perpetuate the
inequalities required to reserve benefits to the elite few while maintaining a multicul-
tural face in the global world” (Sakamoto et al. 2013, 20). Nationality and immigra-
tion status (along with gender in case of immigrant women) are deeply embedded
and interwoven in the discourse of undesirable or undeserving immigrant and ren-
der international work experience essentially worthless in the Canadian labour mar-
ket, hence denying immigrant professionals access to meaningful work. Bauder
(2003) suggests that professional associations and the state actively exclude immi-
grant labour from the most highly desired occupations in order to reserve these
occupations for Canadian-born and Canadian-educated workers. In line with
Bauder’s assessment, we argue that denying immigrants/refugees access to high paid
and high status professions is not about the protection of Canadian occupations, but
rather, about protectionism (Office of the Fairness Commissioner 2013). Our view
mirrors that of Guo (2009, 2013) who argues that protectionism excludes profes-
sional membership to certain immigrants, whose education and professional expe-
rience are rendered inferior to Canadian experience, contributing to their economic
exclusion. Immigrant professionals are perceived as being unable to secure suitable
employment and achieve labour market integration because of their individual lack
of skills. However, this argument is invalid because immigrants who are currently
migrating through the points-based system are in fact university educated and
highly skilled. Labour market policies informed by the deficit model of difference
predict immigrants’ success based on individuals’ personal attributes. A major limi-
tation of such thinking is that these regulations do not factor in the systemic con-
straints that hinder immigrant labour market integration. In this respect,
Stacey Wilson-Forsberg and Bharati Sethi | 105

employment programs for immigrants become a band-aid fix that fails to address
those systemic constraints (Bejan 2011/12).
The requirement for Canadian experience is now embedded deeply into the fed-
eral immigration documents. Due to the general acknowledgement among stake-
holders and the public that international work experience is, for the most part,
discounted by Canadian employers, the most recent changes to the Immigration and
Refugee Protection Act (IPRA) include increasing admission points for Canadian
work experience in the skilled worker category (such as the Federal Skilled Worker
Program and new Federal Skilled Trades Class) and reducing points for foreign work
experience (Canada Gazette 2012). Here Foucault’s (1977) power-knowledge nexus
is fitting. He argued that “power produces knowledge… that power and knowledge
directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative
constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose
and constitute at the same time power relations” (27). In the aforementioned IRPA
policy, the state used its power explicitly – and in partnership with Canadian
employers – to certify Canadian experience as a true and accepted body of knowl-
edge while discounting knowledge generated in certain developing countries.
Sakamoto et al. (2013) are appropriately critical of giving more weight to Canadian
experience in the IRPA. According to these authors, “despite the established critique
of a lack of ‘Canadian experience’ as an exclusionary practice, immigration policy
embraced ‘Canadian experience’ as a criterion to identify immigrants who will have
more success in the Canadian labour force” (3). While the federal government rec-
ognizes the past failure of the human capital model in accomplishing the economic
integration of immigrants, it is hopeful that the changes (based on the same human
capital model) will create a better match between immigration and labour market
needs (CIC 2012c).
The normalization of Canadian experience and the promotion of volunteering
as a way to acquire it also raise the idea of difference. On the subject of difference,
Ahmed (2000) argues, “Difference is immediately ‘our difference:’ it is difference that
belongs to the inclusive ‘we’ of the nation” (96). By allocating more weight to
Canadian work experience, the Canadian government has legitimatized it as the ‘we’
of the nation, thus erasing the value of that which is different – international expe-
rience – (the ‘they’ of the nation). The federal policies that have endorsed Canadian
experience as a significant requirement for migration have sustained the
skilled/unskilled, deserving/undeserving and desirable/undesirable immigrant bina-
ries. In the end, immigration controls are not just about supplying skilled labour to
fill the labour market shortage or increase population growth; they are the expres-
sion of a political idea of who could be eligible to receive the entitlements of resi-
dence and citizenship (Smith 1993).
 106 | Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada

To deal with immigrants’ non-recognition of education and work experience

and ensure their fair access to work, in 2007, the Ontario government set up the
Office of the Fairness Commissioner (OFC), which defines fair access as going
“beyond improving registration practices. It requires looking at fairness in new
ways: the goal is not just treating all people the same, but ensuring substantive equal-
ity with regard to key outcomes” (OFC 2013, 6). Through the 2006 Fair Access to
Regulated Professions Act, the OFC mandated “transparency, objectivity, impartial-
ity and fairness in the policies and procedures that regulators use to license appli-
cants in their professions” (4). One of the areas the OFC is currently focusing on is
to ensure that immigrants are not penalized due to lack of Canadian experience in
occupations where Canadian experience is not relevant to performing work tasks.
We want to acknowledge this move as a step in the positive direction; however, it is
indeed paradoxical that in the amended 2013 Federal Skilled Worker program, more
points have been allocated to Canadian experience and the points for foreign work
experience in the recruitment of immigrants have been lowered.
[45.160.36.189] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 20:13 GMT) UNIVALI-Universidade Do Vale Do ItajaÃÂ

Interventions based on excluding difference and forcing immigrants to comply

with the status quo produce the aforementioned deficit model of difference. This
model is problematic for immigrant integration and the economic growth of
Canada. It would be worthwhile to consider other employment-related practices
that have shown to be more effective in immigrant economic integration than vol-
unteering, but they receive relatively little attention from policymakers and prospec-
tive employers. For example, research shows that mentoring can dramatically
improve the employment prospects of immigrants. A survey of 292 immigrants con-
ducted in 2012 for ALLIES, an arm of the Toronto-based Maytree Foundation,
demonstrated that unemployment rates plunged from 73 per cent prior to partici-
pating in a mentoring program, to 19 per cent a year later (Maytree Foundation
2013). A program whereby established entrepreneurs volunteer their time as men-
tors to immigrant professionals to develop their entrepreneurial potential might
therefore be in order (Schlosser and Tawfik 2012). Ultimately, open and honest con-
versations are needed between the federal and provincial governments to ensure that
we provide fair access to employment for those immigrants currently in Canada and
for those to whom we are planning to open doors in the future. The erasure of that
which is different does not align with Canada’s multiculturalism policy that prides
itself on celebrating differences; rather that policy points to managing or disciplin-
ing those differences.
Stacey Wilson-Forsberg and Bharati Sethi | 107

NOTES
1. Both authors contributed equally to this work.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Bharati Sethi's Study was financially supported by the Ontario Women's Health Scholars Award, which is funded by the
Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, and the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (VGS) funded by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

STACEY WILSON-FORSBERG is Assistant Professor in the Human Rights Program

at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research focuses on the migration experiences of
immigrants in Canada and Mexico, specifically the integration of immigrant youth
and the role of engaged citizens and social capital in the integration process.

BHARATI SETHI is Assistant Professor at King’s School of Social Work, Western

University. She has worked as a community-based researcher for the last eight years,
focusing on issues affecting immigrants/refugees to Canada’s urban/rural communi-
ties, intersectionality theory, and arts-based methods.